This invention relates to the cooling of a heat dissipating circuit element and, more particularly, to an arrangement and method for providing enhanced cooling of such an element which is mounted to a printed circuit board.
In recent years, there has been a rapid development of high power electronic components to meet increasing demands on performance and size of electronic systems. Such components may be encapsulated within an hermetic enclosure and have a plurality of leads extending from the enclosure. The leads are utilized both for mounting the component to the printed circuit board and for providing electrical interconnections between the printed circuit board and the component. Generally, such components are only mounted to one side of a printed circuit board. As the density of such components on the circuit board increases, the heat generated on that side of the circuit board is increased while at the same time the amount of area available for heat dissipation on that side of the circuit board is reduced. It would therefore be desirable to be able to utilize the other side of the printed circuit board for heat dissipation.